Protestantism and Patriotism : Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650–1668

Protestantism and Patriotism is a detailed study of the first two Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652–1654 and 1665–1667) and the ideological contexts in which they were fought. It differs from other treatments of English foreign policy in this period by emphasising that diplomacy, trade and warfare cannot be studied in isolation from domestic culture.

Protestantism and Patriotism offers a fundamental reinterpretation of English political culture between 1650 and 1668. It is also both the most detailed study to date of the causes and consequences of the first two Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652–1654 and 1665–1667), and a configuration of the English political nation which engaged in those two conflicts. Professor Pincus argues that it is impossible to understand the making of English foreign policy in this period without a careful study of its ideological contexts, while at the same time suggesting that accounts of English domestic politics which ignore the ideological implications of England's place in European political culture are impoverished. Because of the broad context in which the Anglo-Dutch Wars are situated, the book will appeal not only to specialists in English foreign policy but to all those interested in seventeenth-century English and Dutch politics and culture.